


As the World Comes to an End, I'll be There to Hold Your Hand

by AvaCelt



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Gen, I can guarantee you half the cast is gonna die once Gintama ends, M/M, So I've elected to rectify the situation before it comes to fruition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-22 13:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou had survived. He would always survive. On the other hand, the Joui Four have yet to punk out of a challenge, so they make a roadtrip out of a sorry affair. An adventure is still an adventure, even if the destination's unknown. [Also known as that one time the Joui Four plus friends took Tatsuma's boat and went off to search for a runaway immortal dad who has way too many kids.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bedtime Stories

**Author's Note:**

> Title from lyrics in "King and Lionheart" by Of Monsters and Men. Can be listened to here [(x)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76a_LNIYwE).
> 
> This is yet another headcanon ending to Gintama, based on the last fifteen or so chapters.

“And then he picked up the little boy and went off into the sunset. The child finally found itself a parent, and the dead god found himself a reason to continue existing.”

Shinpachi blinked while Kagura yawned into her fist. “But why didn't he just have sex with the village women and make his _own_ babies?” Kagura griped audibly.

“And why couldn't he just search for an orphanage?” Shinpachi shook his head in disgust. “There are tons of children who need parents. If you ask me, Dead God-san was just being lazy.”

“Like Gin-chan,” Kagura added.

“Gin-chan heard that!” Gintoki barked from his futon. Shinpachi and Kagura wrinkled their noses simultaneously.

“Aren't you supposed to be asleep, asshole?” Catherine drawled from her corner, cigarette smoke clouding the air around her.

“How can I sleep with you assholes yapping all day?”

Otose shrugged. “It's that or dying in a ditch somewhere. I suppose I can still dump your body in the trashcan since the sanitation workers don't come by until tomorrow morning.”

“Harsh but necessary,” Shinpachi noted.

“Gin-chan and trashcans go hand-in-hand,” Kagura agreed.

“And I hate all of you,” Gintoki griped as his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. The second floor of the Yorozuya Gin-san descended into silence as Otose and Catherine continued to puff on their cigarettes while Shinpachi watched Kagura munch on sukonbu. Outside, thunder reverberated throughout Kabukichou, signaling an end to the evening's revelry.

“Oi, Hag.”

“What, asshole?”

Gintoki's eyes remained on the ceiling's wooden beams. “Tell me another story.”

Otose scoffed. “Who said the stories were for you?”

“About the dead god,” he continued.

“He took his kid and went off into the sunset. What more is there to tell?”

Kagura and Shinpachi caught Gintoki's eyes glaze over.

“Gin-chan?” Kagura asked softly.

“Gin-san...” Shinpachi dropped his eyes and fingered a roll of unused bandages.

“Just one more,” Gintoki all but pleaded. The children shifted closer to him, smoothing down his comforter.

Otose took a long drag of her cigarette and shifted her gaze over to the open door of the Yorozuya's second floor home. The rain beat swiftly against the wood and metal of the building, sliding down to the asphalt on the streets below. “A thousand years ago, a man lost everything and so he killed everything. Every time he killed, he lost a piece of his heart. Soon, he didn't have a heart left. Then he lost his lungs, his intestines, his kidneys, and with every murder, he lost a piece of himself. Soon, he became a shell. Oh, he could move, talk, smile, but his movements were languid. His words were wise, but empty. His smile beautiful, but hollow. He was, from the moment of his first murder, a hollow man- an empty man.”

She settled into her zabuton, extinguishing her dying cigarette into a small ashtray. Shinpachi lit her fresh one as Kagura and Catherine listened intently.

“But soon, the hollow man began to feel the effects of his emptiness, and he decided that he no longer wanted to be that way. He went off to kill himself and when he jumped into the ocean, he realized he couldn't drown. He fell asleep in the water and woke up on a beach sometime later, in a land he'd never been to before. He'd survived. You see, as he went on killing, another god took each of his murders as payment. Soon enough, the hollow man had become a hollow god because the other god took his methodical murders as a procession towards godhood, instead of the senseless killing that it really was. The hollow man had become a hollow god, and in his endless killing, he'd lost track of time.”

“Time?” Kagura cocked her head to the side. “How'd the lazy man lose track of time after killing so many people?”

Otose shrugged. “I'd ask him if I ever met him, but since I haven't, let's just go with 'he forgot.'”

“He certainly sounds like Gin-san in some ways,” Shinpachi teased.

“Maybe it _was_ Sakata!” Catherine guffawed.

“Anywho,” sniffed Otose. “The hollow god lost track of time and it turned out that he'd spent a hundred years killing all kinds of people across his homeland. Now, theoretically speaking, the people he killed could be considered “bad,” but for the hollow god and the people who surrounded him, good and bad were sometimes one and the same. The hollow god came from a land that had just been conquered by another group of people. He was born to the natives but he grew up with many tongues, saw many die, saw the rise of a kingdom, and lived in his small corner of the world until everything was taken away from him. When he began killing, he killed all those who had a hand in taking away what once belonged to him, and then he went on to kill whoever got in the way of his peaceful life. For those hundred years, he was both hated and and revered as a monster in his homeland. But, when the hollow god ended up in the foreign land, he didn't know the language, the day, the year, or even that he'd lived a hundred years since the first time he killed. Soon enough, he found a fishing village, picked up the language, and learned that he'd spent five years in the foreign land. From then on, he began counting his days, his weeks, and finally, his years. Three more years later, he bid the village goodbye and resumed killing.”

“A fat lot of good that does those poor people!” Kagura protested belligerently. “They fed him and gave him shelter and he just goes back to killing anyway? Shame! Shame on the lazy man!”

Otose nodded. “He went on killing. He killed and he killed, until one day he grew tired. He laid down in a field in the middle of winter. He fell asleep and when he woke up, he realized he'd been asleep for an entire season because he'd frozen under the winter sky. He woke up in the spring after his body thawed in the sun. When he cleaned himself up, he realized he was still in one piece, just like when he'd washed ashore outside the fishing village. The hollow god now knew that nothing could kill him- not the ocean, and certainly not the cold. Just to be sure, he set himself on fire. Thankfully, he experimented naked since the flames soon died away and all that remained was smooth skin and a beautiful face.”

“What a lucky asshole,” Catherine drawled. “Beauty and immortality. He could have all the women and men in the world, and instead he wastes his time killing? Schlub.”

“Lazy ass!” Kagura called.

“Utterly useless,” Shinpachi agreed.

“Well, this useless, hollow god eventually came to the conclusion that he'd grown lonely as well as tired. That fishing village had given him some of his humanity back, but the killing extinguished what little he had left. Eventually, he thought about weighing himself down with rocks and then jumping into the ocean again so he'd sink to the bottom. He had it all planned out. He'd paid some men to bury his body in a box filled with rocks, and then when they'd been out at sea for at least a month, they'd throw the box overboard with him inside. The hollow god supposed he'd be asleep for at least a century if he did that, maybe even more, depending on how favorable the sea wanted to be.”

“But clearly, that doesn't happen,” Shinpachi sighed.

“Clearly,” Otose agreed. “Because the afternoon before the hollow god went off to put himself to sleep for a good long while, he came upon a field of dead bodies. It was unheard of in this part of the land. According to what my father told me, the hollow god was now living in the Heian period of Japan. There wasn't much warring going about, at least not in the capital cities and the bustling ports, but that didn't mean that there weren't _other_ kinds of monsters running about. In this field of dead bodies, the hollow god spotted one lone heartbeat. What do you think he did?”

“Turn back and head home?” Kagura offered.

“Chuckle and stab some dead bodies because he's too lazy to find his own victims?” Catherine chimed in.

“I wish,” Otose sighed. “Because at least then the story would have come to an end and I wouldn't have to keep going, but no. The asshole god decided he wanted to pretend to be a humanitarian for once and closed in on the lone heartbeat. It was a child, maybe three years old, with his intestines spilling out as he gasped for breath. The hollow god didn't know what to do, so he did what he did best- he collected the strange creature and stitched together its wounds and gave it warm milk so it could instruct him in further matters. Didn't do much good since the child died anyway, but he died holding the hollow god's hollow finger.”

“The next morning, the hollow god purposely missed the ship that was set to leave. Instead, the hollow god took the body of the little boy and buried it on a beach, so the child's ghost could run on the sand and breath in the salty air for all of eternity. The hollow god then found himself crying. Quite a shock, considering it had been almost two hundred years since he shed a tear.”

“The death of the child opened up the hollow god's own wounds. The hollow god didn't forget what he lost, but he didn't much remind himself of the past either. Hence why he never remarried, never had more children, nor did he make any friends. But the dead child reminded him of his own dead children, the wife who died birthing his third and last child, and the parents, friends, sisters, and brothers who had all died in war, war, and even more war. The hollow god did not like to remember his losses, but they were his to feel, and when the little boy died holding his finger, the hollow god could feel himself become even emptier. Do you brats know what happens when you lose the remaining inkling of hope you didn't even know you had left?”

Kagura chose not to answer, instead playing with Gintoki's hair. Catherine guffawed, lighting her fifteenth cigarette of the night, while Shinpachi morosely changed Gintoki's bandages on his left leg.

Otose smiled sadly into her cigarette. “You stop breathing. The hollow god stopped breathing, and he went on a reign of terror that lasted fifty years. He killed and killed and killed, until he came upon another dying child. This one he chose to keep forever. The child reminded him of his own dead children, and the hollow god decided then and there that all children were his children, and all blood was his blood to spill. So the hollow god spilled his immortal blood on the dying child so the child could live to breathe another day. The child opened its eyes, the dead god picked him up, and they went off into the sunset. The child had found itself a parent that would never hurt him, and the dead god found a reason to continue existing... and continue killing.”

“He killed and he killed and he killed until he saved another child. And another child, and another child, and many more after that. Many children died because of prior complications, but the dead god always sat next to them when they passed. Some of those that lived devoted themselves to him. The dead god would always disappear to let the children live out their lives as adults, but many found him, and while many joined him, others left him in peace. They sent him letters and provided him offerings for giving them another chance at life.”

“He killed, and he killed, and he saved, and then he killed, and then he saved. All the land's children had become his children, and all the land's blood became his blood to spill. But, as most stories go, even this one has an ending.”

“But he's a god, he can't die!” Kagura cried, accidentally tugging on Gintoki's hair.

“Easy, Kagura-chan,” Shinpachi scolded.

“She's right though,” Catherine drawled. “He's a god. He can't die.”

“All gods die, idiot.” Otose took another drag of her cigarette. “The child whom he granted immortality to in his moment of weakness was set to die. Oh, the blood of the dead god had given him prolonged life, but he wasn't a hollow man. He was but a child, even at forty, a child who wanted his father and nothing more. The hollow god couldn't take that, you know. He always left when his children verged on adulthood. If they sought to find him, he didn't stop them, but he always left before they could fully grow. He didn't want to see them die. He was, after all, a god, and they were nothing but mortals. He'd even left behind the first child when he became a young man, but the child found him soon after, and fought the monster until he explained why he left. The monster never explained, but he did take his son back. And so, there was the monster and his child for many, many years, along with brothers and sisters, until the child finally began to die.”

“Did he bury him on the beach too?” Kagura asked meekly, her own eyes glazing over and staring out into the rain.

“Nope. They say the dead god gave up his immortality at that moment. See, he was so obsessed with offing himself that he never realized that his immortality was an energy in itself. It couldn't be destroyed, merely transferred, and if he broke the energy into bits, he could give a piece of his power to as many beings as he liked. And so, he gave his power to his dying child and all the other dying children around him. They all woke up to breathe another day, but when they crawled over to their father, he was no longer breathing himself. And so the dead god died for good, his children circled around him, his body hollow and his blood coloring the sand red. After that day, the patron god of children perished and no one ever thought to ask about him again.”

“Hollow god, empty god, dead god. A bit of a drama queen, wouldn't you say, Hag?” Gintoki whispered from his futon.

“The biggest diva imaginable,” Otose drawled.

“Where was the land he washed ashore to?”

“Japan, permhead, why else would I be telling you the story?”

“And where did he come from?”

Otose fished yet another cigarette from the folds of her kimono and lit it briskly with her lighter. “Burma, probably. Could be Indonesia or the Philippines. Maybe it was as far away as India, close to the Bengals, but who knows? He wasn't from here, that's for sure. My father was from one of the fishing villages on the outskirts of Okinawa. Out there, they still look up to the dead god as the patron diety for children's welfare, even though the legends tell them that he's dead. To them, that means very little. He protects their kids when the days are tough and every able-bodied man and woman has to take to the sea to bring home food and supplies. The children are left alone. We were already immigrating to Edo by the time I was a few months old, but my brothers, sisters, and cousins before me knew of the dead god and his continued vigil over the village's children. Even if the dead god couldn't feel, his children could.”

“But he died, and dead people can't do anything,” Kagura clipped.

“It aint about that, brat. I like to think that after he died, his children buried him back home, back where he first had everything. You know, as tribute. Either way, it's just a sad tale about a sad old man who had nothing in the end, told to all the children whose parents put their faith in a fairy tale while they fought to bring home food. But maybe, just maybe the Dead God _did_ have everything. Those kids did cry for him in the end, and so did my brothers, sisters, and cousins before I was born, before my father found a job in Kabukichou and moved us out here. Maybe that's all that mattered in the end. Maybe all that mattered was that even when the dead god lost everything, he still managed to gain it all back.”

“He made his children cry. That makes him the worst kinda scum to grace the planet,” Gintoki chuckled.

Otose laughed. “Probably. He was a lazy piece of shit after all.”

“Yeah, he could have adopted orphanages, but he instead kidnapped children off battlefields! We should call the police on him if we ever see him, Granny!”

“Kagura-chan's right, Otose-san,” Shinpachi smiled. “A lazy man like that deserves all the beatings he can get. Making kids cry? Worst crime in the book.”

“We could have started an anti-dead god committee... if he wasn't, you know, dead.” Catherine shook her head morosely. “Oh, well.”

The room descended into silence again until Tama told them dinner was ready. Tama offered to bring the children their dinner upstairs, but Gintoki asked them to leave. They did. With the lights turned off and the entrance to the Yorozuya home open, the damp wet continued to breath life into Gintoki's lungs.

“Do you suppose he survived?” Katsura asked from the shadows.

“You know he did,” Shinsuke drawled from the closet, his lover dozing in his lap as he slid open the door and stared out into the rain.

“I'll bet you a foot and a half of my hair that Oboro wasn't his first mistake... or his last.” Katsura clipped.

“Don't blame the crow-feathered asshole for ending up with a father like him,” Shinsuke grumbled, threading the fingers of his free hand through Kamui's loose, red locks.

“He could be anywhere,” Katsura groused.

“But we know he went home,” Shinsuke hummed in response.

Katsura let out a harsh bout of laughter. “I can't believe the asshole's done this before. Imagine how many times Oboro and the likes of him managed to come out of a situation alive even after being _skewered_.”

“The main asshole managed to live through a beheading. You thought his kids wouldn't be able to handle a few impalings?” Shinsuke snickered.

“Explains why we're still alive,” Gintoki deadpanned.

“Utsuro, the patron god of children.” Katsura shook his head. “What an _asshole._ ”

“Thought Takachibi's father-in-law did him in for good, but turns out the shitty freak took a boat home while the rest of us were wallowing in depression. _Asshole_ ,” Gintoki gritted through his teeth.

“Kamui should have made sure Oboro was dead,” Katsura sniffed.

“He usually stops caring after the sixth pint of blood,” Shinsuke offered.

“Doesn't matter, now the monster and his child have run off,” Katsura clipped.

“Shit,” Gintoki started.

“God fucking dammit,” Katsura griped.

“If only we had a boat,” Shinsuke mused.

“I have a boat, ahaha ahahaha!”

Gintoki paled. “... where the fuck are you hiding, Tatsuma?”

“In the ceiling,” called the bushy haired fellow.

“Get down, moron,” Shinsuke drawled.

“Only if you come out of the closet,” snickered the resident gunslinger.

Shinsuke began to cuss, but Kamui made a noise of discomfort, and he immediately settled down and went back to massaging the redhead's scalp.

Gintoki got up and pooled the blankets in his lap. “We'll have to leave bright and early. Zura, go tell the kids. Takachibi, if you bring your husband, try not to make out in front of Kagura. She'll have another stroke. And Tatsuma, make sure we have enough gasoline for a roundtrip.”

“Yay, adventure!” Tatsuma fell out of the ceiling and into Gintoki's lap.

“Why,” Gintoki begged.

Tatsuma planted a sloppy kiss on his scruffy cheek. “For friendship!”

“All I have is you, Elizabeth,” Katsura admitted to his friend. The Renho beneath the duck costume stood still and merely stared ahead.

Mutsu and Abuto sighed dramatically in unison and went to tell the rest of the Yorozuya about the impending adventure that would most likely cost a few people their limbs. Not that the four heavenly kings seemed to care.

They had a father to go find.


	2. Tin Shacks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He was always a long way from home.” Katsura's eyes were fixed on the moon and stars above. “Maybe Tenshouin Naraku's decimation was the perfect excuse to finally go back.”

They scoured six different places over the course of four months. The Yorozuya's intended leave of absence was so off mark that Otose began to send them messages by birds and Amanto freelancers. The letters ranged from tales about how clients were knocking on her bar door when they were actually looking for Gintoki and his ragtag kids, to demands for missing rent money. Gintoki had already made attempts at weaseling thousands of yen out of his childhood friends, but he was sure that if he asked Tatsuma for a single extra yen, Mutsu would hang him by his balls for everyone's amusement.

Exactly five months from when they first left the port, Gin's opened the expensive fruit wine they picked up on the banks of Jeju Island. “They say Jeju might have been the island where he first washed up, and that Okinawa was where he landed after he left the village,” Tatsuma mumbled in between bites of spiced prawns while he diligently read Otose's recent letter. “In fact, it's entirely possible that one of Joseon's* territories might have been the landing spot because of the wind currents.”

“The man literally fell asleep in the water, he should have been crushed by the wind currents, not dragged off to another island,” Gintoki griped, nursing his eighth dish of wine while attempting to sneakily slide his hand up Tatsuma's shirt and failing because everyone and their mother knew how terrible Gintoki's coordination skills were when he was plastered.

“You took his head, Gin-chan, and he survived,” Kagura remarked, chewing lazily on her sukonbu and scratching Sadaharu underneath his ear. “Pappy smashed his body to a pulp and he survived. You could throw him into a volcano and he'd probably crawl out unharmed.”

Shinpachi took a sip of his plum and peach juice and nodded his head in agreement. “He set himself on fire and lived to tell the tale, so he could probably also survive a swim in a volcano.”

“Nobume-chan told Gin-chan that he walked out of a funeral pyre even after Gin-chan took his head!”

“He always lives, regardless of how the legend ends,” Shinsuke pondered out loud while Kamui pressed his chest against his back and snuggled beneath the warmth of Shinsuke's gold-threaded haori.

“The legend's always been a ruse so he could escape quietly,” Katsura put in softly. “He never dies, not even when his... children think he's dead.”

“But we should have found him by now!” Gintoki barked, his control slipping from his grasp, a common occurrence when alcohol was pumping through his veins. Kamui growled into Shinsuke's neck while Mutsu inched protectively closer to Tatsuma's oblivious figure. Elizabeth took two steps and made his duck penguin costume much more noticeable in the lantern-lit deck beneath the crescent moon. Kagura and Shinpachi shook their heads and each took a hand to Gintoki's ears and boxed them before he could protest. The shock made him drop his sake dish and before he could hurl obscenties at them, they dashed off with his sake dish and the remaining alcohol.

Shinsuke blew thin curls of smoke into the night air while Gintoki fumed with reddened ears and ruddy cheeks. Tatsuma continued to stuff food into his mouth and pore over Otose's letters while Katsura remained in deep thought.

“The Bengals and Burma are the only places we haven't gone to,” Tatsuma noted after the kids had returned and Abuto cleaned away the rest of the plates, cups, and dishes.

Shinsuke leaned into Kamui's warmth. “He's come a long way from home if he's from one of the Bengal territories.”

“He was always a long way from home.” Katsura's eyes were fixed on the moon and stars above. “Maybe Tenshouin Naraku's decimation was the perfect excuse to finally go back.”

“Who's to say he hasn't before?” Tatsuma challenged, curling into Gintoki's warmth and allowing the drunken man to wrap his arms around his waist and pull him into his lap.

Shinpachi and Kagura made twin faces of disgust before simultaneously yawning. Shinsuke watched as Abuto absently did little braids with Kagura's hair while she began to drift off with Sadaharu at her side. Mutsu drank in the moonlight and massaged Shinpachi's scalp while he fell asleep with her cape tucked around him.

He chuckled loudly into his kiseru, earning a whine of protest from Kamui, who had also began to doze off on his shoulder. Shinsuke grunted genially. “If the asshole had returned to his homeland before, we would have found him already. Fact of the matter is, he probably hasn't been back since he first jumped into the ocean. No doubt that he found out the fate of his homeland over the centuries, but if he'd ever attempted to go back, we'd have known. We've found traces of his story in every land we've visited, but the only place we've yet to track down is the one he came out of. None of the lands have a story about a native who went on a rampage against the conquerors- only stories about a man who killed men ceaselessly but let every child live. The story of the original murders isn't on anyone's tongues anymore because he never made the trip back home before now.”

“And that means whatever is left of Tenshouin Naraku now has a place to call home,” Katsura finished. “He's taken the survivors back to the only place he knows will accept them- his motherland.”

“It's been a thousand years,” Abuto drawled, gazing out into the open sea. “He hasn't been home in a thousand years.”

“The language, the people, the customs, even the food will have changed,” Mutsu remarked.

“All that hasn't changed is the history.” Shinsuke cracked a wide smile. “He's going back to an empty home, but I suppose trained killers he pretends are his children are good enough to get the family business started up again.”

“He should have a nice little shop by now, all ready to prepare another generation of serial killers and mass murderers,” Gintoki hissed scathingly, burying his face in the crook of Tatsuma's neck and breathing in the almond scent of his skin and clothes.

“The Bengal territories and Burma is all that is left of the legends,” Katsura said wistfully. “If he isn't there... then he's no where.”

“He'll likely show up again in another hundred years, but we certainly won't be seeing him if he wants to remain hidden for now,” Shinsuke groused, blowing plumes of smoke out of his mouth.

Gintoki sighed heavily, letting his fingers caress the scarred flesh of Tatsuma's disabled arm. “The Hag said he could be found. She said that he didn't turn away any of his children, even if he was the one who left first. So why? Why is it so hard?”

At that, Shinsuke put out his pipe and shook Kamui awake. They walked down the stairs and into their bed chambers. Mutsu and Abuto picked up the sleeping children and disappeared into the common room where the beds for the children were situated. Tatsuma kissed Gintoki on the cheek before making his way down to their bedroom while Elizabeth stood far enough away that Katsura and Gintoki could have a few last words before sleep took them all.

“He's either there, or he's no where. Fitting,” Katsura chuckled, “for a hollow man.”

“I'm punching him the minute I see him,” Gintoki promised.

“I know.”

A light rain began to fall, and the three remaining men disappeared down the stairs and into the hull before the damp earth consumed them whole.

* * *

A few days later, they parked Tatsuma's boat on a beach on the banks of Burma and left Sadaharu as the reluctant lookout. A few miles into their trek, they came upon rough roads that cut through rice paddies. Kagura and Shinpachi marveled at the sight of the green stalks and the men and women working diligently under the clouded sky. They bought snacks off vendors and picked flowers while the locals ignored their presence and went about their workday.

The Yato tribesmen smelled the coming rainfall and Abuto took the liberty of finding them shelter while the rest of the party made their way down the craggy pathways. Soon enough, the thirty-two year old man returned to inform them of the lack of inns and suggested that they either build shelter or hightail it back to the ship before the water's descent began. Being the kind of people that they were, they chose the third option and continued to walk down the uneven roads while Mutsu wrapped Abuto's mechanical prosthetic with various strips of cloth and rubber straps to keep it from malfunctioning in the rain and electrocuting him in the process.

When the rain came, Kamui and Kagura shut their umbrellas and screeched before breaking into an impromptu battle. They scuffled and emptied entire magazines against each other while the rest trudged slowly through the broken roads and took in the misty landscape. An hour into the rainfall, they came upon another strip of sandy beach. When the Yato tribesmen caught sight of the roaring waves, they immediately detoured through fields of mud and silt to catch the stormy waves and the cold wind.

The Yato tribesmen dropped their umbrellas and sought the cold water and waves while the rest watched. The tribesmen prayed to whatever gods they left behind on Rakuyou. Gintoki wrapped his arm tightly around Tatsuma's shoulder and pressed a soft kiss to his stubbly cheek while Katsura chuckled behind him. Shinsuke smoked his pipe underneath his umbrella, watching as his lover took off his boots and went skipping through the crashing waters. Kagura eventually began to chase him, and soon enough, Mutsu and Abuto begrudgingly took after the siblings while rain soaked through their clothes and into their skin and bones.

Gintoki's gaze caught the shapes of several children yelling excitedly a few yards away. A thunderous voice called to them, and the children ignored it to continue playing in the sand and rain. The Joui four and Elizabeth unconsciously began to follow the image of the young children clambering about in the rain and the caretaker who tiredly bustled after them. When they'd come close enough, they hid behind the skeletons of several boats piled on top of each other while curiously gazing at the tired caretaker and the carefree children.

The caretaker was a young thing, no more then twenty. They couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, only that they were in charge and didn't care about the foreigners chasing each other through the waves a few yards down, eyes focused solely on the four children screeching happily in the rain.

“Ohther ke bolo bhitore ashte*,” came a familiar voice, filtered through the sound of crashing waves, screaming children, and steady rainfall. Gintoki felt his blood freeze.

“Ora shunlee na!*” The caretaker called back exasperatedly. “Eh! Pola pan! Bhitore ash naile Aba thoder mahta khaise!*”

At that, the children groaned in unison before beginning to shuffle their way back to the caretaker who began to take walk them to a well-obscured shack hidden in the reeds and thick grass bordering the beach. When the tin door to the shack opened, Shinsuke fingered the sword tucked into its sheath at his side.

Oboro was alive. He still looked like death, but he wasn't as dead as the day Gintoki impaled him on his sword, or the day Kamui punched a hole through his chest and left him to bleed out. His countenance was grim still, but when the soaked children lined up in front of him, he wrapped a quilt around each one of them before gently ushering them into the shack. Katsura fumed. There was a smile tugging at the one-eyed, silver-haired man's lips. One of the children cried helplessly for something, but the second he pressed a kiss to her forehead, she settled down and latched on to him. He picked her up and began to speak directly to her while she stuck her thumb in her mouth and listened intently.

But it wasn't Oboro's voice that called for the caretaker. The caretaker gazed at the stormy sea one last time before following Oboro inside the shack and closing the door behind them.

“You brats are a hundred years too early to be spying on me in my own home.”

Gintoki gulped and turned around to face the man he swore he'd punch once he saw him again. But all he could do in his presence was stare, wide-eyed and helpless. The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou stood poised in the cold rain, a relic of both the present and the past, dusky brown skin glistening and ethereal on a stormy afternoon in a land unknown to him and his friends.

And so their father smiled.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Joseon: Korea
> 
> *Ohther ke bolo bhitore ashte: Tell them to come inside. (Bangla to English)
> 
> *Ora shunlee na: If they should listen. (Bangla to English)
> 
> *Eh! Pola pan! Bhitore ash naile Aba thoder mahta khaise!: Hey! Children! Come inside or Dad will have your heads! (Bangla to English)


	3. Childhood Blues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like all things, the story didn't end the way Gintoki wanted it to.

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou was wrapped in clothes Gintoki, Katsura, and Shinsuke never imagined he would own. He wore a brown tunic with loose, cotton pants tightened at his waist with thick thread. His hair was tied firmly in a ponytail, while his bare feet pressed into the wet and soft sand.

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou shifted his posture and revealed three black studs embedded in his left ear. He beamed as if the beach didn't look like it was about to flood the neighboring shacks and the little nest the immortal man called home.

“Sensei...” Shinsuke whispered, arms slack on his sides.

“You're very handsome,” Tatsuma noted out loud, not at all taken aback by the man's sudden presence.

“And very much alive,” Katsura groused.

The man who was not Yoshida Shouyou laughed out loud while the Yato tribesmen finally circled around the figure, their umbrella guns poised and ready to shoot. From the corner of his eye, Gintoki noticed Oboro and the caretaker with a young woman, all equally troubled and not at all pleased with the situation at hand.

“More of your little assassins?” Shinsuke chuckled.

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou merely smiled. “What do you think?”

* * *

Like all things, the story didn't end the way Gintoki wanted it to.

“Many more live within this body.” The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou smiled sagely and bounced the baby on his lap. “I won't know when the next one comes out, but I'm hoping luck favors these children and that it isn't Utsuro... or Rudra.”

“Or Kali,” Oboro called.

“Or Mukta,” chirped the caretaker, playing an unknown board game with the older children.

“And these are...” Gintoki gulped. “These are all... you?”

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou shrugged as if it didn't matter. “I'm me; they're whoever they have to be.”

“That doesn't answer his question,” Shinsuke deadpanned. “How do we know you won't go on a killing spree again?”

“You don't.” Oboro held a sleeping baby in his arms. “No one knows when another might come out.”

“Shouyou's execution triggered Utsuro,” Katsura stated. “Maybe there's a pattern.”

“That wasn't Utsuro,” the man who wasn't Shouyou hummed, as if at peace with his existence. “That was Tonmoy. He did a rudimentary assessment of the situation and then called Utsuro.”

“Tonmoy thought it would be wise to call a mass murderer?” Abuto asked incredulously.

“Our body was under the Naraku's control, so it made sense.”

“And none of the other personalities thought to vote on it?” Gintoki sneered and took a long swig of the coconut milk Oboro had offered earlier.

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou blinked and pondered the question for several seconds. “Rudra was sleeping, and I think Kali's still brooding over that thing from two thousand years ago.”

“T-two thousand years!?” Gintoki pretty much coughed up his lung. Tatsuma rubbed his back and wiped his mouth with a napkin. Katsura almost fainted in Elizabeth's lap while Shinsuke stared blankly at the man who had began cooing at the baby in his arms.

“You're dangerous.” Shinsuke pressed. “What makes you think we won't just knock you out and lock you away in a hole for the rest of your life?”

“Stronger men have tried, Takasugi-san.” The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou began to rock the baby to sleep. “I remember spending seventy years in a cell once. That's when Putul was born. He was fragile, like an autumn leaf. He needed a lot of care for many, many years. Rudra broke us out of the cell, killed our captors, and then massacred several towns before he stripped our body naked and threw it in a freezing river. We ended up in rice village. A man took us in and made Putul his wife knowing that if he left Putul out, the bandits would torture him. We lived comfortably for many years. Putul was very happy.”

Katsura sighed. “How many of you are there?”

“Over a hundred,” the man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou said honestly. “I can tell you about all of us. It took a long time, but we finally managed to name and sort each of our brothers. Unfortunately, we've never spoken _him_. Utsuro is the second oldest, but he doesn't like to talk about... _him_.”

“The original,” Gintoki said hollowly. “He hasn't been out in thousands of years, has he?”

The man who wasn't Yoshida Shouyou nodded. “At first, we thought he _couldn't_ come out, but it turns out, he just doesn't want to. He can see everything, you know. Out of all of us... he's the only one who can see and sense every single thing, but he's also the only one who doesn't come out.”

“And who are you?” Tatsuma inquired, eyes glowing with curiosity.

“Me?” The man with the soft blonde hair and homely figure smiled politely. “My name is Yoshida Shouyou, and these are my children.”

* * *

And like all endings that took place in Gintoki's life, it was a sad one. For a second, he even considered staying.

“You're gonna stay here and raise these kids?” He asked, watching as Tatsuma and the others readied their ship for the return trip to Edo. “In a land that isn't even yours?”

The man who was Yoshida Shouyou chuckled softly. There was a little boy latched onto his leg, sucking his thumb and looking up at Gintoki with big, brown eyes. Gintoki saw himself, and then he saw blood. He saw a battlefield with bodies, and he saw rotten food. He saw nights spend sleeping next to dead bodies so he could shield himself from the cold, and he saw water that he'd scooped up from the gutters to pour into his mouth.

He saw a child, and he saw himself. He saw himself, and he saw Yoshida Shouyou.

“Come back with me,” Gintoki said. “Come back.”

Shouyou shook his head. “Utsuro caused too much damage, though I suppose he needed to. None of us like being dormant for too long. Sooner or later, one of us would have slipped out and demanded they get control of the body. You brats are lucky Agun never came out.”

“Did you fight this everyday?”

“Everday.”

“And when I killed you, you couldn't anymore?”

“I never died, Gintoki. I was put to sleep. My brothers stepped in. It's who we are- a body shared by countless selves, but at the end of the day, we all know that we're merely fragments of one man. _He_ won't come out because he hasn't coped with his past yet. Maybe one day we'll be one man, but for now, we're over a hundred sharing one place. Can you forgive us for that?”

But Gintoki had forgiven him the second he realized he was alive. The ghost, the crow, the monster- this was his father.

“I'll come back to visit,” he promised. “We all will. You _could_ come back and make our lives a little easier, but you're a dick.”

“I am, truly,” Yoshida Shouyou chuckled earnestly. “It was good to see you all again. You've grown up just fine. Live freely, Gintoki.”

Gintoki didn't answer, and Shinsuke and Katsura didn't bother to add commentary. They boarded their ship and took the scenic route back to Edo. While they sailed away from the beach, Gintoki saw just how many children Shouyou and had taken in. He counted sixteen. There were four babies, a whole host of toddlers, young adults, and even people Oboro's age. They stood behind their father, guarding their own in a world that didn't owe them any favors. A few of the children even waved, and Gintoki unconsciously waved back.

When the beach faded out of sight, Gintoki wept.

* * *

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Otose blew a ring of smoke at Gintoki's plastered face.

“He'll never die,” he slurred. “The Dead God.”

“I figured.”

“You wanna meet him one day, Hag?”

She scoffed. “Why would I wanna meet a problematic old man at this age? Jirochou's visits give me enough ulcers as it is.”

Gintoki snickered. He lifted his head and stared at the old woman who fed, bathed, and clothed him after he'd chosen death. He thought about running. All he needed was a boat and a lot of sake, and he'd be back in Burma before he knew it.

But Otose's cigarette and Catherine's insistent yapping reminded him that the child that fed off scraps and lived underneath rotting wood was no longer alive. That Gintoki was buried underneath almost thirty years of lived experience. Right now, there was a diabetic in charge.

“One day,” he promised her. “One day I'll introduce you to him.”

And with that, he closed his eyes and drifted off.

* * *

“Did you see him, Shinpachi? He's even prettier up close.”

“Too bad Gin-san didn't take after him.”

“Gin-chan is stinky.”

“At least he's not a serial killer.”

“True.”

* * *

“I'm not inviting that bald bastard to our wedding.”

“You're inviting your father and you're gonna like it.”

“Why do we have to invite my father? Why can't we just invite _your_ father? He's got like twenty kids. They can make up the wedding party!”

“That's not how human weddings work.”

“Well, ya coulda fooled me.”

* * *

“Elizabeth, I'm getting drunk.”

_OK._

“Ok.”

* * *

Tatsuma's face was buried in Gintoki's chest. Even after four bottles, all he could do was think. Thinking never helped Gintoki. Thinking was for Katsura and Takasugi, for Sakamoto when he dealt with merchants, for Shinpachi when he did the dojo's accounts. Gintoki was never much of the brainy type, and he didn't want that responsibility.

“And so the Dead God lives to see another day,” he whispered at the ceiling. Tatsuma snored, deep asleep and away in his dreams. Gintoki smiled, looking towards the future. “Good night, Shouyou.”

And with that, he closed his eyes.

* * *

 

THE END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took three million years to finally finish this fic, but I did it. Read and review, folks! Thanks for sticking with it! *3*


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